St. Paul man gets 8 months for role after 2011 murder

A St. Paul man who had been acquitted of two charges of aiding and abetting a Dayton's Bluff homicide last year was sentenced Friday to eight months in jail on a lesser felony of aiding an offender after the fact.

Ramsey County District Court Judge Patrick Diamond also gave Nicholas John Kruse, 26, a stayed prison sentence of eight years and two months and placed him on 20 years of probation. Kruse will get credit for 49 days already served in jail.

Kruse was accused of driving for Adrian Flowers, who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting Dekoda Marta Galtney, 24, on Sept. 28, 2011 on Fourth Street and Bates Avenue. Flowers was sentenced in June 2012 to 8-1/2 years in prison.

But a jury acquitted Kruse in January on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a drive-by shooting and aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder. The jury deadlocked on a third charge, aiding an offender after the fact.

After Ramsey County prosecutors moved to try Kruse again, he accepted a plea agreement to the third charge, his lawyer, Murad Mohammad, said.

Kruse also pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property after police found a revolver in his bedroom in St. Paul on Dec. 22, 2013. The gun had been stolen from Minneapolis, according to a criminal complaint. Kruse's mother told police that Kruse needed the gun for protection because he was being threatened by gang members, the complaint said.

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On Friday, Diamond gave Kruse a concurrent sentence of eight months for the stolen-property charge. He also said Kruse may not use alcohol or controlled substances during his probation and can have no contact with known gang members.